US 2014/0056172 A1 discloses a method for joining a communication group by receiving and processing light and/or sound signals in a mobile device. A mobile device may receive light and/or sound signals with sensors, such as cameras and/or microphones, and may process the light and/or sound signals to obtain information encoded with the signals. The mobile device may decode detected signaling information and identify connectivity data that may be used to join and transmit messages to the communication group. Examples of communication groups may include websites and social media forums.
A drawback of the prior art method is that the communication groups are grouped in such a way as to allow persons with shared interests to communicate and this grouping is not always sufficient or desired. In particular, there is no means to limit the communication group to devices that remain physically present, or to give a single device control over transaction in the communication group (e.g. single access to a vending machine).
US 2015/0141005 A1 discloses a mobile device to perform actions associated with applications when confirmed to be within proximity of a physical location relevant to the applications. The mobile device identifies a unique identifier of a proximate wireless network access point, determines whether the unique identifier matches a predefined identifier stored on the mobile device and associated with an application, obtains sensor data via a sensor in response to determining that the unique identifier matches the predefined identifier, processes the obtained sensor data to identify encoded information, determines whether the encoded information within the obtained sensor data is associated with the unique identifier and performs an action based on the encoded information in response to determining that the encoded information is associated with the unique identifier. The mobile device may in-dude microphones that may capture acoustic signals and/or cameras that may capture light signals as the sensor data. Using this combination of detecting unique identifiers and re-ceived proximally-relevant information, the mobile device may automatically perform prox-imally-relevant operations, such as transmitting requests to join communication groups that are relevant to the user's particular location. Because proximity and relevance to applications on the mobile device is confirmed, unintended actions may be avoided, such as participation of unregistered devices in a meeting via an application that is localized to a specification location (or a highly local position).